I
have a confession to make: I haven't been paying all that much attention to the presidential primary season, mostly because most what's happened so far
strikes me as irrelevant to who the next president will be. I see it the same
way I see the first few weeks of the baseball season: occasionally entertaining
for die-hard fans but not very meaningful, because what really matters is who
makes the playoffs and gets into the World Series (i.e, the "general
election"). And because this year's GOP field has been filled with a
number of wingnuts with no chance whatsoever of winning the nomination,
I've found it even easier to bide my time and wait for things to shake out.
The
recent hoopla attached to the Iowa caucuses is a case in point: because the preferences
of a tiny subset of self-selected voters from a distinctly unrepresentative
state aren't a bellweather of anything. Iowa got rapt attention because
news organizations want to sell papers and attract listeners and because
pundits can't help bombarding us with breathless narrative about What It All
Means.
For
these reasons, I also haven't said anything about Ron Paul's candidacy,
although Andrew Sullivan has recently highlighted a series of exchanges on whether
Paul's candidacy is actually harmful to broader argument for a more restrained,
non-interventionist foreign policy (a topic I do think is quite important). I've
never though Paul was a credible candidate, however, because his views on a
host of other issues are frankly silly and because he has done a poor job
responding to questions about the racist associations he's had in the past. In
other words, even if Paul has some sensible things to say about foreign policy,
he carries way too much baggage to win the GOP nomination, let alone the
general election. And to be completely clear: I wouldn't vote for him, at least
not based on what I know now.
That
said, I'd make a couple of points about Paul's candidacy, and especially his
take on America's addiction to global adventurism.
First,
despite his bizarre views on the gold standard, climate change, social
security, and the like, Paul has put his finger on a number of issues that could resonate broadly with the
American people, especially if discussion were not monopolized by think tanks
and insiders who are strongly
committed to the status quo. Unlike most foreign policy "experts"
in both parties, Paul believes the United States is an extraordinarily secure
country, with a robust nuclear deterrent, no powerful enemies nearby, and at
present no major power rivals of much significance. He instinctively rejects
the paranoia and worst-casing that has convinced Americans that we need to roam
around the world trying to remake it in our image (a task, by the way, that
we're not very good at). He believes that excessive interventionism and other
failed policies are a primary cause of anti-Americanism around the world, and
that the United States would be more popular and safer if we focused
more attention on trade and diplomacy and domestic issues instead of emphasizing
military dominance and overseas meddling. He believes that a bloated
national security state and a quasi-imperial foreign policy inevitably fosters
greater government secrecy and erodes traditional restraints on executive
power. And like former president (and
five-star general) Dwight D. Eisenhower, he thinks the current
military-industrial complex wields excessive influence on our politics and has
become a self-perpetuating engine for counter-productive meddling abroad.
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